TSLA - Tesla Motors

[randomep]

 

 

Young women who make around $20k a year all over the world can pass on a samsung and buy an iPhone for an extra $400...... a family is going to have to not eat out for a year to buy a Tesla 3 vs. a Fusion...... makes a alot of sense.

 

 

[Voodooking]

https://electrek.co/2018/06/17/tesla-tsla-shorts-position-explodes-elon-musk/

 

I think we are going to start seeing some movement in the next 12 months. Perhaps a profitable quarter, perhaps a huge Panasonic partner investment into the China Gigafactory, perhaps a Model S / X refresh, etc.

 

It makes me tempted to increase my long position. I've watched Musk for years now, and this is the most confident I've seen him.

[CorpRaider]

In Panasonic, or?

[Voodooking]

In Panasonic, or?

 

No, no, in TSLA - I haven't followed or researched Panasonic enough to have any knowledge or opinion on it. Could be an interesting company for people who have Panasonic in their circle of competence though.

[petec]

Currently test-driving for our next car. Testing a Tesla X next weekend. Can't wait. Almost certainly won't buy it though. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV for half the price actually has the range to do 90%-100% of our "normal week" mileage in electric mode (i.e. excluding long trips we might make 5-6 times a year).

 

That, combined with the rash of EV announcements from every automaker on earth, convinces me that Tesla faces a hell of a lot of competition. The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

Still wildly excited to drive the Tesla though. They are damn cool. And I have to credit Musk with playing a large part in changing the world. I just don't plan to pay him for his good work ;) 

[Liberty]

The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

It isn't. And the only reason they're doing what they're doing now, years later, is because of Tesla. Otherwise they'd be doing it even slower, and their traditional dealers network would still be incentivized to sell gasoline over EV because they make a lot more on maintenance and it's what they know.

 

The idea isn't that they'll somehow suppress the technology and won't invest in it at all, it's that they'll drag their feet as long as possible (as they have been doing for 20+ years) and make the transition as unthreatening to their cash cows with heavy sunk costs as possible (that's why hybrids and EVs have tended to look weird or be in segments that are less profitable, etc. Another thing that Tesla has changed) and do things half-assed (take gasoline car platforms and shoehorn EV drivetrains into them, reducing a lot of the benefits of ground-up EV designs, so making EVs less compelling VS ICE, etc).

 

They also love to get all the PR and halo benefits without actually doing the work. So many times there's been big announcements at car shows and fancy concepts cars that never become anything, or that are made in small numbers and only sold in select markets and then disappear or are never refreshed.

 

I've been a closely watcher of this for a long time, it's obviously not bunk. Thankfully it's finally starting to change, but even all the cars that people say are coming are mostly not here yet, and when they start appearing we'll see how fast they ramp up and what kind of push there is for them from the companies.

[A Dhandho Investor]

The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

It isn't. And the only reason they're doing what they're doing now, years later, is because of Tesla. Otherwise they'd be doing it even slower, and their traditional dealers network would still be incentivized to sell gasoline over EV because they make a lot more on maintenance and it's what they know.

 

I think you are correct that they make a lot more on maintenance with ICE cars, but isn't part of the reason also that Electric cars completely change the value chain (from the car manufacturer to the suppliers)? The attached report provides some interesting insight into this (page 13 to 15).

ing-breakthrough-of-electric-vehicle-threatens-european-car-industry.pdf

[JRM]

Currently test-driving for our next car. Testing a Tesla X next weekend. Can't wait. Almost certainly won't buy it though. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV for half the price actually has the range to do 90%-100% of our "normal week" mileage in electric mode (i.e. excluding long trips we might make 5-6 times a year).

 

That, combined with the rash of EV announcements from every automaker on earth, convinces me that Tesla faces a hell of a lot of competition. The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

Still wildly excited to drive the Tesla though. They are damn cool. And I have to credit Musk with playing a large part in changing the world. I just don't plan to pay him for his good work ;)

 

Don't forget that legacy car makers can subsidize BEVs with ICE vehicles until they take market share.  They can sell the BEVs at a break even or loss where as Tesla must sell high margin luxury vehicles to stay alive.

[alpha]

 

The TSLA bull/bear war being fought in the media right now is getting crazy. Over the weekend Musk tweeted a pic of a car on a manufacturing line claiming it was the first AWD version to roll off a new production line they had completed in just 3 weeks. Shortly after a short seller who lives near the factory posted his own pictures of a temporary tent structure missing a wall, containing the machinery Musk had taken a picture of claiming it was far from finished.

 

It will make a great movie some day.

 

 

 

[Liberty]

 

The TSLA bull/bear war being fought in the media right now is getting crazy. Over the weekend Musk tweeted a pic of a car on a manufacturing line claiming it was the first AWD version to roll off a new production line they had completed in just 3 weeks. Shortly after a short seller who lives near the factory posted his own pictures of a temporary tent structure missing a wall, containing the machinery Musk had taken a picture of claiming it was far from finished.

 

It will make a great movie some day.

 

 

From a manufacturing guy that I follow:

 

 

But the book will definitely be interesting:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html

[CorpRaider]

He has pretty much totally freaked me out. 

 

Either you need to raise capital or your don't.  STFU and execute or STFU and raise the capital while you are getting a 5x revenue valuation.  I mean talking about and promoting the product/business ops is great but promoting the shares and hinting about the coming impact of material nonpublic information or potentially making up or misrepresenting said information publicly.....while you are active in the stock.... is flirting with disaster.  I mean this is getting maybe in the Martin Shkreli zip code.

 

One guy to write the book is already VERY interested in the story.  He just released another book entitled Bad Blood...about the Theranos fraud.

[rb]

He has pretty much totally freaked me out. 

 

Either you need to raise capital or your don't.  STFU and execute or STFU and raise the capital while you are getting a 5x revenue valuation.  I mean talking about and promoting the product/business ops is great but promoting the shares and hinting about the coming impact of material nonpublic information or potentially making up or misrepresenting said information publicly.....while you are active in the stock.... is flirting with disaster.  I mean this is getting maybe in the Martin Shkreli zip code.

 

One guy to write the book is already VERY interested in the story.  He just released another book entitled Bad Blood...about the Theranos fraud.

Welcome to reality TV - stock market edition. Stay tuned for our next episode.

[randomep]

 

From the aforementioned email from Musk about sabotage:

 

As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. ........

 

no no no! you should've said

 

 

Hey this is what happens when you change things. First they say you are crazy. Then they fight you. Then you change the world!

 

 

;D

 

 

ps. I hope you all know the Holmes reference !

 

 

 

[Investmentacct]

Not sure about world changes that much around

Shortville.

 

However, quite different management styles for both companies;  Experiences and remainscences  from FRFHF fairfax circa 2003-2006 comes to mind. Not so ironic, on the CoBF board, where majority of board members lived through one of the most interesting series of events. Sanjeev, Cardboard, Viking, to name a few.  Big, difference is using Twitter as tool to fight mis-information  as it’s available in social network era compared to early prior decade.

 

 

 

From the aforementioned email from Musk about sabotage:

 

As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. ........

 

no no no! you should've said

 

 

Hey this is what happens when you change things. First they say you are crazy. Then they fight you. Then you change the world!

 

 

;D

 

 

ps. I hope you all know the Holmes reference !

[petec]

The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

It isn't. And the only reason they're doing what they're doing now, years later, is because of Tesla. Otherwise they'd be doing it even slower, and their traditional dealers network would still be incentivized to sell gasoline over EV because they make a lot more on maintenance and it's what they know.

 

The idea isn't that they'll somehow suppress the technology and won't invest in it at all, it's that they'll drag their feet as long as possible (as they have been doing for 20+ years) and make the transition as unthreatening to their cash cows with heavy sunk costs as possible (that's why hybrids and EVs have tended to look weird or be in segments that are less profitable, etc. Another thing that Tesla has changed) and do things half-assed (take gasoline car platforms and shoehorn EV drivetrains into them, reducing a lot of the benefits of ground-up EV designs, so making EVs less compelling VS ICE, etc).

 

They also love to get all the PR and halo benefits without actually doing the work. So many times there's been big announcements at car shows and fancy concepts cars that never become anything, or that are made in small numbers and only sold in select markets and then disappear or are never refreshed.

 

I've been a closely watcher of this for a long time, it's obviously not bunk. Thankfully it's finally starting to change, but even all the cars that people say are coming are mostly not here yet, and when they start appearing we'll see how fast they ramp up and what kind of push there is for them from the companies.

 

I understand all of this and I agree that the change will be slower than it could be. But - as you accept - it is still change. Legacy OEMs (at least where I live) are seeing their customers come in and demand electric versions every day, and they are responding, as evidenced by two cars I looked at this weekend, the Passat and Outlander hybrids (neither of which look weird or are in unprofitable segments, and neither of which are being made in low volumes). The legacy OEMs aren't stupid. They are starting to see that, if consumer preferences keep heading this way (big if) they either change or die. In the long run they won't sacrifice the mother ships (which make money off finance) to save the dealers (which make money off repairs).

 

The real disrupter will be the guy who mass-produces a cheap fleet vehicle for Uber, which once automated will destroy the personalisation and finance profit pools for the OEMs. This is a dead industry if ever there was one!

 

Still quite fancy that Tesla though.

[Liberty]

The idea that legacy carmakers are somehow conflicted to produce and sell EV's is bunk, on any meaningful timeframe.

 

It isn't. And the only reason they're doing what they're doing now, years later, is because of Tesla. Otherwise they'd be doing it even slower, and their traditional dealers network would still be incentivized to sell gasoline over EV because they make a lot more on maintenance and it's what they know.

 

The idea isn't that they'll somehow suppress the technology and won't invest in it at all, it's that they'll drag their feet as long as possible (as they have been doing for 20+ years) and make the transition as unthreatening to their cash cows with heavy sunk costs as possible (that's why hybrids and EVs have tended to look weird or be in segments that are less profitable, etc. Another thing that Tesla has changed) and do things half-assed (take gasoline car platforms and shoehorn EV drivetrains into them, reducing a lot of the benefits of ground-up EV designs, so making EVs less compelling VS ICE, etc).

 

They also love to get all the PR and halo benefits without actually doing the work. So many times there's been big announcements at car shows and fancy concepts cars that never become anything, or that are made in small numbers and only sold in select markets and then disappear or are never refreshed.

 

I've been a closely watcher of this for a long time, it's obviously not bunk. Thankfully it's finally starting to change, but even all the cars that people say are coming are mostly not here yet, and when they start appearing we'll see how fast they ramp up and what kind of push there is for them from the companies.

 

I understand all of this and I agree that the change will be slower than it could be. But - as you accept - it is still change. Legacy OEMs (at least where I live) are seeing their customers come in and demand electric versions every day, and they are responding, as evidenced by two cars I looked at this weekend, the Passat and Outlander hybrids (neither of which look weird or are in unprofitable segments, and neither of which are being made in low volumes). The legacy OEMs aren't stupid. They are starting to see that, if consumer preferences keep heading this way (big if) they either change or die. In the long run they won't sacrifice the mother ships (which make money off finance) to save the dealers (which make money off repairs).

 

The real disrupter will be the guy who mass-produces a cheap fleet vehicle for Uber, which once automated will destroy the personalisation and finance profit pools for the OEMs. This is a dead industry if ever there was one!

 

Still quite fancy that Tesla though.

 

Ok, but if the whole problem with burning oil (and with hundreds of millions of people around the world joining the global middle class and starting to drive or be driven around more) is that there's a time pressure, then slowing things down matters a lot. If there was not time pressure and it was just like going from spinning hard drives to SSDs (a nice upgrade but who cares how fast it happens), then I wouldn't mind the feet dragging as much and someone like Musk wouldn't have been as important to catalyze and speed things up.

[rkbabang]

"Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an email to all employees on Monday morning about a factory fire, and seemed to reference possible sabotage.

 

Now, CNBC has learned that Musk also sent an e-mail to all employees at Tesla late on Sunday night alleging that he has discovered a saboteur in the company's ranks.

 

Musk said this person had conducted "quite extensive and damaging sabotage" to the company's operations, including by changing code to an internal product and exporting data to outsiders.

 

In 2016, after a SpaceX rocket exploded while being fueled up before an engine test, Musk and SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell also looked into the possibility of sabotage."

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html

 

[Cardboard]

When your incompetence shows up then blame it on someone else.

 

Frustrated employees, corporate espionage, fire due to a dirty air filter are nothing new for any corporation. Now because this guy cannot meet his crazy targets without a solid plan, he is a victim of some conspiration.

 

Trump haters out there... This is the same arguments you use against Trump and now you still love that Musk guy???

 

Cardboard

[Liberty]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/tesla-sues-former-employee-for-allegedly-hacking-trade-secrets

[black-dog]

We've gone from "extensive sabotage" including wondering if yet another production line fire was due to sabotage to one person stole a bunch of data and sent it somewhere.

 

Anyway! Daimler's electric semi being available means Tesla's deposits on the Semi are at risk. At max that's ~10% of their claimed deposit base ($~$375m I believe) and the future valuation of that product line should be $0. Daimler's a market leader, they have a massive software in an area Tesla has no experience in, lock-in advantage that Tesla didn't face in luxury consumer automobiles, and you can buy one now and realize the benefits.

 

I doubt that's meaningful at this point -- it's Model 3 or bust, apparently. Possibly "and bust"

[treasurehunt]

We've gone from "extensive sabotage" including wondering if yet another production line fire was due to sabotage to one person stole a bunch of data and sent it somewhere.

 

Anyway! Daimler's electric semi being available means Tesla's deposits on the Semi are at risk. At max that's ~10% of their claimed deposit base ($~$375m I believe) and the future valuation of that product line should be $0. Daimler's a market leader, they have a massive software in an area Tesla has no experience in, lock-in advantage that Tesla didn't face in luxury consumer automobiles, and you can buy one now and realize the benefits.

 

I doubt that's meaningful at this point -- it's Model 3 or bust, apparently. Possibly "and bust"

I have no idea if Tesla's semi will be viable or not, but I don't think Daimler's electric trucks are going to be available any time soon. Here's a quote from an article about the trucks in autoblog: "Daimler said it will deliver 30 vehicles to customers later this year for field-testing and expects to have the trucks in production by 2021."

 

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/06/06/daimler-s-freightliner-unveils-tesla-fighter-electric-trucks/

[alpha]

We've gone from "extensive sabotage" including wondering if yet another production line fire was due to sabotage to one person stole a bunch of data and sent it somewhere.

 

Anyway! Daimler's electric semi being available means Tesla's deposits on the Semi are at risk. At max that's ~10% of their claimed deposit base ($~$375m I believe) and the future valuation of that product line should be $0. Daimler's a market leader, they have a massive software in an area Tesla has no experience in, lock-in advantage that Tesla didn't face in luxury consumer automobiles, and you can buy one now and realize the benefits.

 

I doubt that's meaningful at this point -- it's Model 3 or bust, apparently. Possibly "and bust"

I have no idea if Tesla's semi will be viable or not, but I don't think Daimler's electric trucks are going to be available any time soon. Here's a quote from an article about the trucks in autoblog: "Daimler said it will deliver 30 vehicles to customers later this year for field-testing and expects to have the trucks in production by 2021."

 

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/06/06/daimler-s-freightliner-unveils-tesla-fighter-electric-trucks/

 

The head of Tesla Semi's program has been reassigned to manage model 3 production, which would indicate the project has been halted. So I doubt the Tesla Semi will be on the roads before 2021, unless they come to their senses and outsource the manufacturing to a 3rd party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rb]

Why would another truck manufacturer want to build trucks for Tesla?

[Spekulatius]

Why would another truck manufacturer want to build trucks for Tesla?

 

Eludes me too. I could see another truck manufacturer using Tesla‘s batteries perhaps, but that’s about it.

[alpha]

Why would another truck manufacturer want to build trucks for Tesla?

 

Modern automotive manufacturing supply chain is huge, there are suppliers like Magna that can basically produce an entire vehicle and slap a brand name on it if necessary.

 

Or they could negotiate a deal with another manufacturer that would allow them to use Teslas batteries, motors, and drive train. Similar to the arrangements Tesla had with Mercedes and Toyota.